Seven Saturdays is the name by which Jonathan Haskell floats his slow blooming, instrumental compositions to the public... most notably in the form of his 7 song debut, The Snowflakes That Hit Us Became Our Stars. Like a wealth of mostly electronic endeavors, the record was ripe for a remix...or six in the form of the Secret Things EP. Teen Daze, who I last remember getting their mits on a pretty righteous Local Natives track, give Saturday's "True Romance" a whirl, pairing Benjamin Gauvain Hoste directed visuals along with the revved up version of the track.

Artist Bio

Jonathan D. Haskell's work as Seven Saturdays is informed by the desolation of afterhours Los Angeles. From dimly lit Mulholland Drive to the isolated streets of Downtown, it is in these quiet moments symphonic landscapes emerge; coming together to form the headphone-centric Seven Saturdays.

Seven Saturdays began as a creative concept in 2010 when Los Angeles musician/producer Jonathan D. Haskell wanted to sharpen his engineering skills on off days during the recording of his first two EPs (Seven Saturdays - which Stereogum described as "gripping and mellowly epic" - & The Snowflakes That Hit Us Became Our Stars).

Over seven consecutive Saturdays, Haskell challenged himself to write, play and record an entire song each day. Not only did this exercise lead to the bands namesake and a full-length album (2011s Love In The Time Of Anticipated Defeat), it also grew into something Haskell had not anticipated. It was really cathartic because not only did a fully realized ambient record emerge from this experience, but that vision ultimately expanded the boundaries of what I initially thought my musical direction would be, Jonathan explains, whereas the first EPs were more structured and orchestrated, these 'ambient recordings were free and sonically expansive.

On the eponymous new Seven Saturdays album due out in May, Haskell merges these two creative approachesthe structured and the ambient-- into one holistic vision. The fusion really played a part in the recording of the new record, explains Haskell, It is a combination of structured orchestration with continuous loops and arithmetic glitchesand vocals layered throughout. The addition of the human voice is a significant change from Haskells past work. The way I approached Seven Saturdays in the beginning was to build the most dense, sonically adventurous sound possible. Jonathan states, Occasionally instrumental work can feel detached. I began to notice the minute a voice was introduced, I felt a more profound resonance with the music. For Seven Saturdays, the thick beds of ambient noise needed to be there on my end, amped up as much as possible, while the vocals needed to be front and center to really emphasize that human connection to the underpinning of the instrumental base.

For Haskell personally, this Seven Saturdays album will forever be a signpost marking a significant turning point in his life. In the middle of recording of the album Jonathan left Los Angeles to pursue a MBA at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, planning to continue to work on the album remotely. It took ten days to drop out and return to LA to finish the record. Says Haskell, Seven Saturdays required everything I have in me physically and emotionally to complete. I needed those ten days to reaffirm my path and realize that music is where it begins and ends. My only regret is that it took me ten days longer to finish the record.